The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Mark Sisson, and is narrated by Tina Lehman.

Humor for Health, what modern science and our evolutionary story teach us about lightning up.

I've always believed you could tell a lot about a person based on when they laugh, or if they laugh at all.

Laughter provides a brief but in-depth window into arguably the most enigmatic organ in the body,

as well as the idiosyncrasies at work for that individual.

I've suggested before that we adults take life way too seriously.

Compared to the average child who belts out around 400 laughs a day, we summon a measly 15th

18 per day.

Somehow I think we're missing out on a lot in all that seriousness, mentally and maybe even

physically. Just think for a minute about how you feel when you do laugh. Can you remember the last

time you did? The almost involuntary force moving up the chest and out, the streaming eyes, shaking

body and complete loss of anything even remotely

resembling stress or worry. There you go. Laughter is infectious, and there's a reason for that.

It heals the body, lifts the spirit, and elevates mood like nothing else can. It eases tension,

for you and for a group.

I stand by my belief that laughter is thoroughly underrated, and science seems to agree.

Grock is funny guy?

Let's back up a minute and look at the ancestral picture.

Humor performed a critical function within evolution by encouraging social cohesion and alleviating the personal stress that would keep Grogh and his kin angry, desperate, and inflexible in conditions that required a more adaptable response for survival. Research shows that our ability to find amusement in dialogue and situations actually evolved in parallel with our neurological and physiological

changes over millions of years. Researchers at Binghampton University postulate that

laughter is a pre-adaptation that was gradually elaborated and co-opted through both biological

and cultural evolution. Humor in its early form probably developed

...